Personality Types and Animal Symbols in Proverbs and Folk Culture Based on Alfred Adler's Theory

The analysis of literary texts using psychological theories, which are referred to as psychological critique, and sometimes based on Freudchr('39')s teachings as psychoanalytic critique, is a practical-pragmatic approach in dealing with literary text. It is an interdisciplinary approach that connects two areas of humanities and opens new windows on text comprehension. The issue of personality, and its multiple types, is the main area of ​​applying psychology in the reality of the outside world. Awareness of this category leads to improved social relationships and constructive interactions. Personality types appear and play a role not only in external objectivity and in obvious social relations, but also in literary texts. Beyond that, the symbolic animals used in popular literature and proverbs, in a deep and profound function, can represent the personality types. Alfred Adler, a pioneer of social psychology and the theorist of individual psychology, has introduced one of the most influential theories in this field by presenting four personality types. The current paper, based on this theoretical framework and with a descriptive-analytical method, examines the literary proverbs and folk culture, and shows the validity of this theory in a range of literary statements and folk beliefs. This study, taking the theory from the field of one or more coherent works to the historical-applied literary proverbs and folk culture, shows how the proverbs, based on their cultural schemata, and due to their concise and influential nature, reflect symbolic animals in the form of psychological personality types.